Welcome to “Our Sleepless Nights” Home Page
Hurricane Katrina was this country’s worst natural disaster, but the disaster was not limited to just Mother Nature. The human devastation that followed was equally unprecedented. Civilization just evaporated, the police retreated to protective compounds and neighbors were left to help neighbor with food, water, protection and tending to the dead.
This is the story of how one resident of New Orleans, John Lee, survived the physical storm only to be caught up in the maelstrom of social anarchy that followed. The climax of which was the burial of Miss Vera. It is Miss Vera’s grave, more than anything else, that has come to symbolize the abandonment the Katrina survivors experienced and the resilience and hope for recovery that made them survivors.
Bob Woodruff of ABC News put it this way:
“And that grave that John Lee made has now become a public shrine to the …dead in general here.”
“Our Sleepless Nights” is an easy read, but will leave you with some uneasy questions. “Could this happen again?” and “Could this happen in my neighborhood?” It is an important book to understanding how fragile our civilization truly is. |
